Europe: Population by Age and Sex, 1950 - 2050;
Proportion of Elderly, Working Age Population, and Children

Note: This animation was produced with the
author's DemoGraphics '06 program.

Source: United Nations Population
Division (2005), World Population Prospects, 2004 Revision

Europe will experience a dramatic
process of population aging. According to the most recent UN population
projections, the Old Continent's elderly (above age 60) will be almost 35% of the
population by the middle of the 21st century. Slowly, politicians and the media begin to understand what
this means for social security, health insurance and pension systems (it
is a shame that demographers have consistently predicted Europe's
aging problems for more than 25 years - being widely ignored by both
politicians and the media!).

While the problems of population aging for
Europe's generation-contract-based pension systems are now slowly
becoming public knowledge, the consequences for overall economic growth
and technical innovation are still widely ignored. With one third of the
population older than 60 years, the Old Continent will have serious
difficulties by the middle of the 21st century of sustaining those
permanent (technological) innovations that are necessary for economic
prosperity. We may be healthier and more active at higher ages, but this
does not compensate the lifecycle-related decline in creativity and
risk-taking. The huge elderly population of Europe in 2050 may be active
and healthy enough for playing golf or traveling around the world (if
they can still afford it after the necessary adjustments of their
pension systems), but they will hardly compete with young Americans or
Chinese in their 20th in high-tech research or engineering.

It has to be emphasized that these UN
projections include a significant net-immigration into Europe! To
stop or significantly slow down the process of population aging,
immigration from outside of Europe would have to be much larger
than in the past (for details see
In-depths analysis).